


I Want To Hold Your Hand

by wagamiller



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wagamiller/pseuds/wagamiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jess realises she might have <i>feelings.</i></p>
<p>Oneshot, circa 'Chicago'</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Hold Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** New Girl and associated characters don’t belong to me etc.
> 
> Finally getting round to moving this over from Tumblr. This was originally posted before Chicago aired, although with hindsight it still fits in pretty well with how the episode actually went down. The hand-holding moment in the ep is a big one for Nick/Jess so even though this was written with no knowledge of that moment, feel free to pretend this is a precursor to it.  
> Apologies for the lame title, but sometimes time is short and I throw a lyric up there.

—

They’ve been in Chicago less than a day, before Jess has to retreat to the Millers’ upstairs bathroom to call Cece.

Cece takes a while to answer and when she does, Jess can hear the distant thud of music that tells her Cece’s at a shoot.

“Sorry, you’re working-” Jess begins, but Cece cuts her off.

“It’s cool, I’ve ducked out for a minute. This is more important. How’s Nick doing?”

“I don’t know.” Jess lets out a long breath, considering. “He’s holding up, I think, but he seems exhausted.” 

She closes her eyes and draws up the image of him as she last saw him, sitting at the kitchen table, bent intently over a list of what he needed to do for the funeral. He’d had his back to her, seemingly unaware of her lingering presence on the threshold. She’d just watched him from the doorway, her whole body itching to go to him, drape an arm around him and rest her chin on his shoulder. 

Instead she’d ran off, freaked out by the realisation that she’d gotten to know him well enough to read his mood in just the line of his shoulders or the back of his neck. 

And that’s how she came to be hiding in the bathroom and speed dialling her best friend.

“When’s the funeral?” Cece prompts, bringing her back to the present.

“In a few days. Nick’s doing a lot to organise it.”

“Maybe that’s good,” Cece suggests. “Something to focus on might be what he needs.”

“Yeah I guess,” Jess agrees. 

Neither of them says anything for a moment, and the thing that Jess really wants to talk about seems to hover in the quiet between them, suspended somewhere in the static. The desire to talk is a ceaseless drumming urge in Jess, beating as steady as the thud of bass she can still hear in the background of the call. 

In the end she stays quiet, unwilling to put it into words, to make any part of this about her.

And then, because Cece is Cece and her very best friend in the whole world, she asks, “What about you? Are you ok?”

Jess slides down against the bathroom door to sit on the floor, guilt and relief flooding through her at the chance to talk about it. 

“It just sucks y’know, seeing him like this,” she admits at last, quietly, almost to herself.

“I know,” Cece agrees softly. 

“I feel like -” Jess trails off. 

She can’t find the words to explain that ever since Nick told her about his dad and his whole body seemed to sag with the weight of what’s happening, all she’s wanted to do is to hold him up somehow.  

“Cece I think I’m in trouble,” she says, at last. 

“Why?” 

“Something bad happened to him and I just want to hold his hand,” Jess says, like that explains it all. It sort of does, to her at least. 

“So?”

“So I want to hold his hand!” She repeats herself, because she gets the feeling Cece doesn’t see the importance of this and why it just might change everything. 

Jess feels herself start to hyperventilate a little now. “I don’t want to let go of his hand Cece,” is all the further clarification she can manage.  

There’s a beat of silence and then Cece says, “Oh.”

Just like that, Jess knows she understands. 

Cece sighs quietly, a crackle of static. “So go hold his hand,” she tells her gently, like it’s obvious. “He’s right there.”

Now it’s Jess’ turn to say, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jess can hear the smile in Cece’s voice.

“You think?”

“I do.”

“Ok.”

Jess feels her breathing level out, her pulse calming for maybe the first time since she arrived in Chicago.

“Thanks Cece,” she says, feeling a rush of affection for her friend.

“Don’t worry about it. Tell Nick I asked after him, ok?”

“Yeah.”

- 

When Jess heads back downstairs, Nick is where she left him, hunched over the kitchen table. This time she doesn’t even pause in the doorway. He looks up at her approach, turning his head to see who it is. Jess drops her hand on his shoulder on her way past, gives it a squeeze, before settling herself in the chair opposite him.

“Give me the list,” she tells him firmly, in response to his questioning look.

“Jess, it’s fine. I can handle it,” he protests, like she knew he would.

“Shut up,” she fires back out of habit more than anything else. “Let me help.”

“I’m fine on my own,” he shoots back, his voice taking on a familiar argumentative edge. She feels a jolt of relief to hear it, to see some part of his normal self is still there, peeking out under the grief.

“Give me the list, Nick,” she insists, reaching for it.

He tries to hold on, like she’d anticipated. They have a momentary tug of war over the yellow legal pad.

Jess nearly loses her grip when she looks up and catches sight of his face. Ever since he heard the news about his father, he’s had this awful, closed up expression, like he’s been drained of any feeling. But right now his face is animated, his eyes brighter. The way his jaw juts out as he wrestles for the pad reminds her of the expression she’d caught a flash of as he pulled her into his arms that first time, seconds before he kissed her.  Her stomach gives a little flip and the sudden feeling gives her a little push of adrenaline, enough to wrench the pad away from him.  

Her triumphant exclamation is muffled by his groan of annoyance.

She draws the pad closer to her, snatching up the pen as well before he thinks to go for that. “Right, let’s see what we’ve got to do,” she says, biting back a smile at the way he huffs in irritation.

Jess starts to read down the list, trying to spot if he’s missed anything. Her attention slips the second she realises Nick has left one hand resting on the table, just across from her. 

She keeps her eyes on the list, because if she looks at him she might just lose all her courage, and lets herself reach for his hand at last.

He flinches at the contact but doesn’t pull away even as she laces their fingers together. 

His hand is cold.

A warmth spreads through her fingertips anyway.

It takes a second but when she does manage to look up, she finds that his annoyed expression has softened into something else entirely. He looks tired and sad and a little bit scared but there is a spot of colour in his cheeks that wasn’t there before. And he’s smiling at her, sort of, at least his lips are quirking upward on one side. Given the circumstances, she’ll take it. 

He holds her gaze for a moment, then flicks his eyes to the table and says, “Add ‘put a notice in the paper’.”

“What?”

“To the list,” he clarifies. “Add it to the list.” There’s a beat and then he squeezes her hand and adds, “Please.” 

She takes up the pen in free hand and they get to work on the to-do list. They even manage a solid two minutes before they start arguing about who should take what task.

And it’s strange really because just a few days ago she was wrapped around him and it still didn’t feel close enough. But right now, bickering for the sake of it, with just his hand in hers, she’s never felt closer to anyone.

_Yeah,_  she thinks,  _I’m definitely in trouble._

Still, she doesn’t let go.


End file.
